I seem to always be posting about driving...but oh well here I go again..

I live in the bush .. and grew up in the bush... and understand that we live in the territory of other animals and we must respect that to the utmost. I am cool with snakes, love frogs, geckos, birds, bush roaches, lizards etc etc.

But BIG HUGE HAIRY MULTICOLOURED spiders I seriously lose it.

For instance. I was driving to a waterhole the other day, and each time we leave our place to get back into civilisation it involves windy mountain roads with a speed limit of 80km/hr.

So we are cruising down the hill in our normal way, when suddenly my passenger-seat sitting b/f is almost sitting on my lap. I sense his fear and know something is very bad. In my own worry I careen over to the otherside of the road for a few seconds before checking myself and going back. And thankfully didn't hit anything.

However, there is a MASSIVE (bigger than my handspan, and I don't have little hands) spider cruising around in the front of the car. Needless to say I pull over asap and we all jump outta the car. He hides, and I refuse to drive, (knowing that I WILL crash if he gets on me)..so we make our way down the road somemore, (with my b/f and myself squashed into the back of the car peering over the front seats in suspense-filled horror.)

Eventually this huge thing tentatively sticks his legs out from where he was at (under the glovebox somewhere) and I calmly ask our mate to pull over straight away. We all jump outta the car again and luckily the spider runs for the window and eventually we get him off the car. Thank f#@$. But I continue to shake and tremble (probably with relief) for the next hour or so.

Does anyone else have a completely illogical fear of anything? Or crashed cos of a massive spider deciding to latch itself onto you? Or conquered a fear like this??

*still shuddering*

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.- B.B.King

aaaaaaaaaaagh! that's the funniest thing i ever read ever!!!!! my heart just raced like i was there!

mako sharks, man, they give me the gooey bathing suit... them things can go 50 miles an hour!!!!

(first all you see is my little head poking up out of the water)GET ME OUTTA THIS MUTHAFUGGIN WATTA!!!!!(next you see me hydroplaning, running on the water, toward the boat)

-Such a price the gods exact for song: to become what we sing-Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty.-When the center of the storm does not move, you are in its path.

A good mate of mine was driving along mnding her own business, when she felt something on her leg (yes, she was alone in the car, so it was not an over amourous suitor ). She look down and saw a funnel web spider.

For those of you not in the know, funnel web spiders are one of those lovely critters Australians talk about to scare foreigners. They are very very posionous.

Fortunately she was stopped at the traffic lights at the time, and she leapt from her car and did the stampy anti spider dance, much to the amusement and bewilderment of onlookers.

She wasn't bitten, but had the heeby-jeebies for weeks.

It was a day for screaming at inanimate objects.

What this calls for is a special mix of psychology and extreme violence...

Posted:31st Dec 2002My Aunt was driving along the motorway once when a massive crow hit the windscreen.As if this wasn't bad enough,it then flapped in through her window and landed on her lap.She had to drive a further 8 miles or so with the dying bird on her knee before she could get off at the next junction and dispose of it properly.Yuk!

Posted:31st Dec 2002Well recently on the way to Sheffield on a massive bus we hit a Pheasant. It was loud and it cracked the windscreen quite badly! I must say I am quite happy I wanst in the front of the coach or (even worse) driving it!

Wow!

Anyways back to the original question... I have many fears of different types of animals but slowly, ever soooooooo slowly I am trying to confront my fears and get away from them.

A few weeks ago I conquered the horse thing I had. Now you might think its funny or something but for some reason I had always been afraid of horses since I was very small. I got on one when I was about 12 and it ran off with me. My friend had to run and grab the reigns as it took me onto the street and I was too terrified to do anything that would stop it.

I am happy to say that over the years I have slowly and painstakingly been getting closer to large animals (the power in them is a bit scary as I dont know whether I am going to piss them off or not) and about three weeks ago I had some petting encounters with horses! I even fed them (scares me too!) hay!

I am also quite freaked by:-Weird insects, I had to confront this fear in Brazil. They have some weird dangeurous and BIG insects over there. ... oh and a tip of advice! dont go mushi picking at 5pm as you get insects jumping on you every time you move your foot! NOT fun if you have shorts on...-Sharks or otherwise powerful and dangerous sea creatures; I will be dealing with this fear when I start learning how to dive.-Spiders... I think its the whole the can poison you thing! Not so much a fear more a worry but I also have to confront it at some stage!-Agressive dogs; my sis got bitten in the calf by a rotwiler (sp!!!!) when I was little and I have been quite shaken up since!

I am scared of many things but the more I confront my fears the more confident I become within myself! It makes me so happy to be able to say that I am now not afraid of horses and thats just one step in the big process of getting away from these fears!

I am also afraid of jumping! Funny isnt it! Its not heights as I love being on top of mountains but jumping be it out of a plane or off a mountain (mythmitch I WILL do that base jump ) REALLY puts chills in my spine.

Posted:31st Dec 2002I used to have a horrible phobia of spiders. When I was a little kid about 5 years old I think some stupid teenagers discovered I had this phobia and chased me around with live and fake spiders, which made it a lot worse.

I live in an area totally infested with spiders (100 year old house with a dug basement) and inorder to function around here ive been forced to confront them and for the most part they don't bother me. What bothers me is when I see a spider where I don't expect to see one. Like onetime I found a spider web in the fridge and I couldn't bring myself to eat any food (even food out of the cuppards) for a couple of days. If I don't think about spiders im fine, but just reading your story has me all antsy and im sitting on my feet with all the lights on and I keep checking the ceiling and the floor for possible spiders even though it's in the dead of winter.

A lot of things people are listing here aren't really phobias but legit fears.

The stampy anti-spider dance!! I'm also a master of the anti-huge-wasp dance...and the anti-crazy-bug dance... you know those HUGE bugs that take off from somewhere and they zooooom really fast into stuff? Like walls and trees and people. And they fly in these huge weird misguided loops... and make that bbzzzlzlzlzz noise.

Pheasants must be huge over there!? To crack a windscreen? Ours aren't all that big...

Drome... you reckon you'll ever ride again? Horse riding is one of my reasons for living...!

I used to be scared heaps of dogs..since I was about 7. See.. I was visiting a friends house with my mum, and a huge golden retriever came out, and suddenly lunged at my throat, snapping angrily. Now I had done nothing to provoke it.. was understandably freaked out. The dog was put down shortly after (I wasn't the first).

I was also practising for crosscountry running once, and a border collie came running across the oval and proceeded to snap at my throat after running me down. Also another narrow escape.

However I overcame all fear of dogs when I started part time work as a dog groomer. I work with little dogs and massive dogs... and I seriously love them now.

I too am going skydiving this year... to overcome fear of what I think is heights. (Could be more a fear of planes though..although I do enjoy flying sometimes.) .. I would LOVE to go basejumping as well on the same spirit. Oh and hang-gliding and hot air ballooning.

Sharks also make me a bit funny..but am learning diving this year so hopefully will help curb my aversions...man just realised how phobic I sound

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.- B.B.King

Posted:3rd Jan 2003So I was just sitting outside enjoying a cup of tea and suddenly this HEEEUGGGE (body the size of a golf ball) hairy spider was suddenly hanging in front of my face. I swear she (must have been female...too big to be male) must have been sizing me up for a snack. "Hi, you look...tasty."

So, being the calm, trained, seasoned biologist that I am, I naturally...screamed like a little girl, spilled hot tea all over the place, and booked my ass inside the house and slammed the screen door while shaking myself to rid myself of evil spider spirits.

Posted:3rd Jan 2003hrm, i've got several spider stories. as a little kid my family lived in singapore, so i got way used to spiders there. any time we saw one in the house, we knew it was gonna die 'cause it'd crossed the poison barrier. the first couple of days were fun though, that's when we learned the importance of knocking out your shoes *and* flippers (we had a pool). those spiders were so big we used to be able to hear them coming down the stairs, kinda like a scuttle, scuttle, plop!got used to them, sorta like pets that you just stayed the hell away from. the gekos that lived behind the curtains were cool as shit though, and they never crapped in the house. kept the cats busy for hours on end tryin to get at them.

the worst (not really scary, never really been that afraid of spiders, more cautious) spider story i have is when my family lived in texas (before singapore) i was 6 and playing in our back yard, and my sisters and i were building a log fort. well, as i picked up a log with my sis, i felt a pinprick on my left knee, and looked down to see a black widow (cousin to the redback) on my leg. needless to say i freaked out at that point, me being 6 and all. anyway, being bit by one sucks ass. your leg gets really tense and spasms, and you have a fever and delerium for about 5 hours (the local emergency room was out of antivenom for bw's, '87 was a bummper year for them) the only lasting effect is that the spot on my knee where i got bit is numb to this day. i've really thought about getting a tattoo there.

the weird thing is that i've never been afraid, and still am not to this day afraid of them. but i'll still kill every black widow i see, just one of those things.in retrospect, i was really dissapointed that i didn't get to be spiderman. if i could shoot webs out of my wrists, i could turn anything i wanted into poi!

Posted:4th Jan 2003Okay, I dont have a completely developed phobia of spiders or anything (I can cope with them just fine if they are nowhere near me!) but I was driving along one day and pulled my sun-visor down to block out the sun and a huntsmen the size of my palm dropped onto my CHEEK - All I could see when I looked down was these two huge legs moving in the air as if taunting me and I could feel a bunch more wriggling around near the side of my mouthEveryone stop reading right now and point your eyes downwards and imagine your entire left eye's vision path being taking up by a smart-ass hairy creepy spider.I then slapped the spider as a reflex action - causing it to smack into the windscreen, rebound off and land perched on the top of my steering wheel - which of course caused me to attempt to jump on my passengers lap.Unfortunately I do not have a Jetson space age car with auto pilot so when I took my hands off the wheel I took out a reflector pole thingy on the side of the road and hit the curb - blowing out a tyre.The NRMA Man nearly wet himself laughing when I not only made him fix my busted tyre and rim, but also made him capture the above mentioned bad ass spider....

I also have a slight phobia of cows who have just been separated from their calves thanks to a stay in a bed and breakfast near Byron Bay and leaving my bedroom window open for them to peer into (obviously looking for their calves) but that's another story....

We all take different paths in life, but no matter which path we take, we take a little of each other everywhere...

Posted:5th Jan 2003Here in WA we have the redback spider which has the reputation for being highly poisonous, but basically they're not too bad. Yes they have killed people, but so have bees and pencils and soap etc. Animal fears wise, Crocs are sneaky bastard things that kill for killings sake. I was recently living near a beach in croc country for a while. And sharks are occasionally a problem on Perth beaches where I swim.

Posted:6th Jan 2003AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! i've just looked up the funnel web spiders!!!! my god!!! they are exactly like in nightmares and stuff!! i'm all shakey now and sitting in a strange position... my girlfriend is a biologist and is studying spiders right now, i think i know who's going to get rid of them in the future

Posted:10th Jan 2003I have a really big fear of Dogs and WaspsAnd Cougers (I've never even seen one out side of the Wildlife park, but it seem like someone gets attacked by one of those cats every couple of months so thusly)

I'm not afraid of spiders, I've been bitten by Wolf Spiders and Ice House Spiders in my sleep they just kinda itch. I've been bitten twice by a Black Widow (little black bitches). Those suck

In the 60's people took acid to make the world weird, now the world is weird and they take prozac to make it normal again.

Posted:10th Jan 2003Was driving up the street the other day and a big huntsman was crawling around the right side of the windscreen, precariously close to the drivers door, scared the crap out of me.

Also know someone who pulled down their sun visor while driving to see a large huntsman perched on it.

I'm fine with snakes and most other animals although I can't stand a close proximity to spiders, so I must be Arachniphobic to some degree.

Facts: the male Sydney funnel web is more poisonous than the female and in mating season wanders around, it is quite agressive and will actually attack, fending of with a broom stick has been known and it's fangs can pierce thick leather boots.Due to the Redbacks fondness of outhouses (outside toilets) many bites have been reported on the end of mens ahemmm genitals.In I think south America large tarantulas are eaten, supposedly tastes a bit like prawn although I certainly ain't going to find out.

The reason most people are afraid of heights is because they subconciously want to jump.

Diving may not neccessarily be the best way of over coming your fear of sharks: while diving (with a snorkel) for abalone a wobygong (small relativly harmless shark) mistook one of my dads flippers for a fish, scared the hell out of him and apparently he was aquaplanning back to shore, I suppose a large one may be able to hold you under water if it was persistent in making a meal of your flippers?

Posted:11th Jan 2003I drove along with my friends in the car with the windows down around 60 mph. Suddenly, this huge bumblebee about as long as my index and middle finger put together flies in and instantly fell in love with me. So it kept buzzing around me and I took the only choice possible; curl into the fetal position, flail around, and curse as loud as I could in German, all whilst still driving at 60. And my friends thought this traumatic experience was funny. Heartless wenches.

I got back at them though. It scares them to death when I contact juggle while driving (I drive with my knee, so both hands are free for it )

I was driving along peacefully the other day on my way to a party... when suddenly this MASSIVE HUGE big hairy fat legs and a billion eyes all glinting at once starting running up towards me. (Okay okay.. I know what you're thinking.. not again.. this chick is kerazee) But ACK.

I was thinking holy crap! Not again!!!! I thought it was on the inside of the windscreen, became totally focussed on the spider and happily swerved into on-coming traffic before that little voice screamed WTF are you doing?!?!? and I screeched onto the correct side of the road almost on the footpath.

After much colourful language I wound up all windows and just stared at it, shaking like a leaf, my b/f also a bit spun out at this stage. These spiders are *monsters*. We debilitated over what to do when I spotted a young guy walking along the side of the road and I beckoned him over and explained my pathetic phobia while requesting he could maybe remove it for me please?

He was also taken aback at the size (at least as big as the first one I posted about here) .. but managed to get it off the car and dispose of it. Uhh... stomped on it good. With a crunch. *shuddering still* I felt as if he'd saved my life.. (no crap) .. !

I'm thinking maybe of going to get hypnosis or something for my arachnophobia. The weird thing is though... I'm completely fine with daddy long legs (e.g. will pick them up happily etc) ..I think they're really cute. I have 100's of them around my house and feel really sad when I see a dead one. I love them completely...

But any other spider! And I'm shaking and trembling in a seriously uncontrollable way ... my heart rate soars and I lose all common sense, just a complete focus on "the spider". I know its pathetic, this overwhelming illogical irrational fear. But instinct tells me otherwise.

Anyways... anyone know of any pills I can take where this'll just disappear happily? Oh it was worth a try....

I did see a chicky on tv once get into a big bath of spiders to get over her fear. I think I would pass out or lose my mind... prolly both...

[ 27. January 2003, 15:23: Message edited by: s-p-l-a-t ]

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.- B.B.King

Apparently there is no actual hard evidence that Daddy Long Legs have the most toxic venom ... just that everybody assumed that because (a) they kill other spidies and (b) no factual research had been properly conducted yet.

They're researching now... (at least, that's what I gandered from my internet researchings) Apparently to be efficient killers..its not always the more toxic that wins..just the spidie who can bite the fastest. Daddy Long Legs can bite their prey super quick.

I really don't think its the poison or venom factor that scares me. I mean...red back spiders don't freak me out that much (cos they're so little) .. its the hairy factor and the way they move of the big disgusting ones... eeek..

The beautiful thing about learning is that no one can take it away from you.- B.B.King

Posted:28th Jan 2003i have ate a daddy long legs and im fine proving that they arent poisonous or there you cant get poisoned by them by eating them.i have been stung by a scorpion and bitten by a red back.scorpions hurt alot but they don't leave lying there vomiting like red backs

Posted:22nd Apr 2006Eww I hate spiders! Just reading this thread is making me think spiders are zip lining down the back of my t-shirt right now!

We have an outside toilet and I use it sometimes because luckily my dad built it (lol ive no idea why) recently so spiders have not taken over the roof space just yet. However it being in the garden they will do one day. Im looking into buying something to let off inside and shut the door so it kills all the spiders inside. Any ideas? I will then buy six and put them in the chicken sheds which are CAKED with spider webs on the cieling and be very amused to see millions of spiders on the floor the next day.

Anyway... my brother once threw a spider in my bed, I copuldnt sleep in it so I had to get some spare blankets and a douvet and sleep in the bath tub that night.

I havnt seen this yet because I need to download quicktime but http://www.vimeo.com/clip:20084for those who dont like bees or spiders, whicever the outcome should please you.

Chief adviser to the Pharaoh, in one very snazzy mutli-coloured coat

'Time goes by so slowly for those who wait...' - Whatever Happend To Baby Madonna?

Posted:22nd Apr 2006Hate spiders! but was kinda forced to get over it a bit when backpacking in mongolia.

one area we were in when we were treking was completely infested with rather large spiders (not as big as some of the ones people have been describing, never seen any that big and hope i never will!!)

they only seemed to be around at night which wasnt so bad but being in tents we had to leave our bags in the porch bit of the tent overnight. when we woke up in the morning, our bags were covered with LOADS of spiders. i mean literally 50+ spiders per bag! (big backpacking bags!) they got in all the pockets, all the little holes, everywhere. we literally had to hold the bag up by a strap and beat it with a stick to get rid of most of them, then pick off the last ones by hand.

nasty nasty nasty!!

as i say, never seen any really big ones, never want to, hate them but can now kinda stand them.

oh and brit_joe, dont know if u have ever seen them but we have mates that live quite near a rubbish dump, and to keep all the little beasties and bugs that are attracted to the tip out of their house, they have this little thing that fits an electric socket on a wall. it makes some kind of high pitched sound (not one people can hear) and literally keeps all bugs out of their house! they work really well, but we couldnt get one cos they drive our dogs nuts!!ANYTHING to get rid of spiders i would be plenty happy with!!